Bolivia Commemorates Beginning of the Agrarian Reform Process

Bolivia commemorated this Wednesday the first agrarian reform process initiated 70 years ago, at a time when 93 percent of the country's public lands have already been reorganized. As for their ownership, the government of President Luis Arce instructed to conclude this process until 2025.

Related:
Protesters Block Bridge Between Peru and Bolivia

The distribution of land to peasants and indigenous people has increased food production and is already competing with large agricultural industries.

The Minister of Rural Development and Lands, Remmy Gonzales, stated that the oligarchy does not guarantee food security, only volumes, but that a large part of those volumes is soybeans of which 80 percent is exported.

"This 35 percent of the total volume produced in Bolivia, which is produced by our peasant and native indigenous brothers and sisters, is so that Bolivians have something to eat every day," he added.

The peasant contribution to food production rose from 25 to 35 percent, which is attributed to the redistribution of land and state policies of promotion in the development of an agrarian reform that began 70 years ago and the sanitation of land 26 years ago.

"Six million hectares we have sanitized and titled, brother president. We are already hovering around 93 percent of the regulation and titling of all the land in Bolivia," said Gonzales.

The agrarian reform process in Bolivia has had several names, now it is called Day of the Productive and Community Agrarian Revolution. The central events took place in the city of Sucre, where President Luis Arce set a deadline to build this social, political and economic process.

President Arce declared: "The land titling process has not concluded, sisters and brothers. That is why we have sent a mandate to the Ministry of Rural Development and Lands through our National Institute of Agrarian Reform to conclude the process and sanitize all rural lands."

"We have delivered more than 150,000 agrarian titles to small producers and community properties, of which, 45 percent of those titles have been delivered to our brothers, to our sisters, to our peasant women, who have benefited from that percentage of land," he added.

Arce reported on more than a dozen agricultural and livestock development projects with state investments exceeding 542 million dollars. He also submitted to the legislature a bill for small peasant properties to be titled as medium or large agricultural properties so that peasants have access to bank loans.